rd things
exist.

To all this we (the Vedantins) make the following reply.--The
non-existence of external things cannot be maintained because we are
conscious of external things. In every act of perception we are
conscious of some external thing corresponding to the idea, whether it
be a post or a wall or a piece of cloth or a jar, and that of which we
are conscious cannot but exist. Why should we pay attention to the words
of a man who, while conscious of an outward thing through its
approximation to his senses, affirms that he is conscious of no outward
thing, and that no such thing exists, any more than we listen to a man
who while he is eating and experiencing the feeling of satisfaction
avers that he does not eat and does not feel satisfied?--If the Bauddha
should reply that he does not affirm that he is conscious of no object
but only that he is conscious of no object apart from the act of
consciousness, we answer that he may indeed make any arbitrary statement
he likes, but that he has no arguments to prove what he says. That the
outward thing exists apart from consciousness, has necessarily to be
accepted on the ground of the nature of consciousness itself. Nobody
when perceiving a post or a wall is conscious of his perception only,
but all men are conscious of posts and walls and the like as objects of
their perceptions. That such is the consciousness of all men, appears
also from the fact that even those who contest the existence of external
things bear witness to their existence when they say that what is an
internal object of cognition appears like something external. For they
practically accept the general consciousness, which testifies to the
existence of an external world, and being at the same time anxious to
refute it they speak of the external things as 'like something
external.' If they did not themselves at the bottom acknowledge the
existence of the external world, how could they use the expression 'like
something external?' No one says, 'Vish/n/umitra appears like the son of
a barren mother.' If we accept the truth as it is given to us in our
consciousness, we must admit that the object of perception appears to us
as something external, not like something external.--But--the Bauddha
may reply--we conclude that the object of perception is only like
something external because external things are impossible.--This
conclusion we rejoin is improper, since the possibility or impossibility
of things is t